Accidental find reveals start of Wethersfield band program

“Work of organization of a Wethersfield grade and high school band started Thursday when George Byerly of Peoria conducted tests and registration.”

One of the side benefits of my weekly trip to the microfilm reader at Kewanee Public Library to browse through old Star Couriers for our “years ago” column is making the occasional “find” of something not generally known from our past.

As I scrolled to last week’s date in January of 1938 I spotted a headline, “Wethersfield High and Grade School Get Band,” in the Friday, Jan. 7, edition.

It wasn’t exactly King Tut’s Tomb, but I had apparently discovered the day the southside school band program began.

The opening paragraph at the beginning of the column was followed by more information about what had happened the day before — Jan. 6, 1938. “The musical talent test was held in the morning and in the afternoon the high school students tried out on the various instruments.”

A total of 62 high school students had expressed interest in band membership and instruments had been assigned to 17 who had “definitely registered” for the band.

Tryouts for grade school students were scheduled for the next Tuesday and about 50 students were expected to sign up.

According to the story, representatives of the Byerly Brothers Music Co. of Peoria, a well-known name in music in central Illinois, were in charge of instruction.

The plan was to have an eight-week trial period for students who had signed up and to have them ready for their first concert by Easter — an ambitious plan to say the least if you know anything about learning to make music come out of a horn.

The band program was sponsored by the Wethersfield Parent Teachers Association (PTA) under the direction of C. Frank Lake, who I believe was also a member of the school board.

“The band instruction will be given during regular school periods and it is hoped that eventually credits will be given for band work,” the article concludes.

Jumping ahead 75 years, high school principal Jeremiah Johnston said Wethersfield students now get an elective half credit per semester or one full credit per year for band. A separate one-semester jazz band class, taught by current band director Jay Hagaman, is also available for half an elective credit.

Johnston also said for the first time this year the school offers a dual-credit class in music appreciation (Music 153), also taught by Hagaman, for high school and Black Hawk College credit.

The band program was apparently set up in the winter and spring of 1938 but a director had not been hired. We checked with Dean Moss, a 1947 WHS graduate who started playing his trumpet in the seventh-grade band in 1941. He said at that time the band director was Charles Haver.

Page 2 of 2 - Myrtle Nelson was choir director, but he also thinks she directed both band and chorus for several years. Longtime band director Charles Bickhaus came in 1949. Moss thought there might have briefly been someone before Haver, but could not remember the name.

I didn’t do any additional research. I’ll save that for another day or future explorers, so I don’t know if they actually pulled off a concert that Easter, or if a band director was hired the next fall, but we now know how it all began 75 years ago this month.